Texas State vs Idaho Preview

By Caleb-Ryan Davis
KTSW Sports

The Texas State Bobcats come back to San Marcos Saturday for their third home game of the season as they look for their second consecutive win.

The Bobcats, 2-2 on the season, are coming off an incredible win over the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes, a game that showed promise for the home team that sent some worry into the media outlets after losing two straight games to the Navy Midshipmen and the Illinois Fighting Illini, respectively.

This week, it’s the Idaho Vandals that will square off against Texas State after a week worth of homecoming events that converge at Bobcat Stadium on Saturday night. The Vandals are 0-4 this season, but they’re a Sun Belt Conference team that head coach Dennis Franchione knows he can’t write off as easily as some would think. Coach Fran describes Idaho’s offense as, “They’re explosive, and they move the ball around with all of their receivers.”

The Vandals offense ranks 20^th nationally among passing yards per game, yet the Bobcat defense, led by linebacker David Mayo, has been able to hold the opposing offense enough to give the Bobcats and Tyler Jones a chance for their own success. Mayo showed his own success this past week after garnering his career highest number of tackles in a single game with 20. The defensive output comes with a bit of a surprise after Texas State lost Mike Orakpo in the game against Navy with an ACL/MCL tear.

Quarterback Tyler Jones threw the ball for 200 yards in his fourth straight game. While Jones continued to have success with wide receivers Jafus Gaines and Ben Ijah the sophomore found a new favorite target in Bradley Miller, who had eight receptions for 112 yards against Tulsa. Saturday’s triple overtime thriller was Miller’s career high in catches, but it only added to his team leading 20 catches for 225 yards so far this season.

The Bobcat defense will need to once again do its job shutting down the air attack and if they find success the running defense will come with more availability from the secondary.

You can catch the Bobcats at 6:05 p.m. Saturday on KTSW 89.9 and online at KTSW.net.

Final notes:

-After missing last week’s trip to Tulsa Rob Lowe has been suited up and practicing this week. However, Lowe may not find playing time once again to enable a second week of rest after a reported knee injury surfaced just before last Saturday’s game.

-Jarrid Jeter-Gilmon will miss the first half of the Idaho game after being ejected against Tulsa for targeting a ball carrier in the second half of the game.

-David Mayo was awarded the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week after his career high 20 tackles against Tulsa

-Michael Odiari had his career high 13 tackles that included 30 tackles for a loss and his first sack of the season against Tulsa